Thank you for the welcome. I was informed of this site this morning over on the MozillaZine.org forums where I host a support thread for my theme and extension.

The Russian translation was done by my wife and I had to pull tooth and nails to get her to do it for my theme and extension, so I doubt I can get her to help with any others. :-(

I'll send an invite to my Polish translator who came to me as a user of my theme.

I know that the majority of add-ons are English centric but that many Firefox users don't speak English. I'm sure non-English speaking users would really appreciate having as many add-on options as possible in their native language. This is why I'm trying to get my add-ons translated.

The Russian translation was done by my wife and I had to pull tooth and nails to get her to do it for my theme and extension, so I doubt I can get her to help with any others. :-(

I suggest you register as Russian translator then before someone 'hijacks' the translation

QUOTE (KLB @ May 13 2008, 14:33)

I know that the majority of add-ons are English centric but that many Firefox users don't speak English. I'm sure non-English speaking users would really appreciate having as many add-on options as possible in their native language. This is why I'm trying to get my add-ons translated.

Hi Ken,I like play with XUL and I made some, IMHO, improvements in your extension:- new options window layout- corrected about window layout- link from about window is opened in the new tab instead new window- changed in the about window OK button to Close- corrected install.rdf file for display about window- removed old method localize extension metadata (this is good solution for extensions which working with Gecko 1.8 and 1.9, but for extensions working with 1.9 only, better way is new method). For getting translation of description you can include .dtd or properties (better is .dtd) file when you upload extension to BabelZilla.

I meant to mentioned this, but the about files are not being used. They are only in the extension for future reference in case I decide to add a custom about window.

While I may make refinements to the localization, at this point in time I do not want to be making changes to the layout of the options panel or make changes to the extension itself. I only want to open up the extension to users who do not read English.

I am a little concerned about the fact that so many changes were made to the original Polish translation and that some of the changes conflict with Polish terminology used in other areas of Firefox. For instance Firefox uses "Opcje" for "Options" and you changed the original translation of "Classic Compact Options" from "Opcje Classic Compact" to "Ustawienia motywu Classic Compact". My wife is a professional translator (Russian/English) and I do realize that there can be different ways to translate a phrase, but I need some way to know who is the most correct with Polish translation and I want to make sure that terminology remains consistent with what is used in Firefox.

I meant to mentioned this, but the about files are not being used. They are only in the extension for future reference in case I decide to add a custom about window.

I saw about.xul and about.dtd files but not working, I made these working

QUOTE (KLB @ May 17 2008, 00:04)

While I may make refinements to the localization, at this point in time I do not want to be making changes to the layout of the options panel or make changes to the extension itself. I only want to open up the extension to users who do not read English.

You are developer and you decide about your extension. As I wrote - I like some play with XUL

QUOTE (KLB @ May 17 2008, 00:04)

I am a little concerned about the fact that so many changes were made to the original Polish translation and that some of the changes conflict with Polish terminology used in other areas of Firefox. For instance Firefox uses "Opcje" for "Options" and you changed the original translation of "Classic Compact Options" from "Opcje Classic Compact" to "Ustawienia motywu Classic Compact". My wife is a professional translator (Russian/English) and I do realize that there can be different ways to translate a phrase, but I need some way to know who is the most correct with Polish translation and I want to make sure that terminology remains consistent with what is used in Firefox.

Ken, I'm Polish Localization Team of Firefox - Aviary.pl member, and believe me, I know what I translate and which terminology we use for Polish version. I used the same scheme as your wife "Настройки Классической Компактной темы", but we don't translate extensions and themes name. If in Russian translation extension name will be not translated, will be looks like "Настройки Classic Compact темы". This is the same as in mine translation "Ustawienia motywu Classic Compact". Настройки = Ustawienia, темы = motywu. IMHO you should use 'Settings' instead 'Options'. In this extension we change settings. Settings=Настройки=Ustawienia BTW I know Russian language In Russian language 'option' is "опцион, опция".

You have settled some of my translating concerns. I was just concerned about differences I was seeing and needed to figure out who was right. In regards to "options" verses "settings" I would prefer to use "options" as this is what is used for the Firefox options panel. I'm really concerned that phrases in my extension uses terminology that is consistent with terminology used throughout Firefox menus, options panel, etc. If there has to be a choice between technical correctness verses consistency with terminology used in Firefox, I would prefer to favor consistency with Firefox terminology.

Why don't you translate the name of an extension? In this case, not translating the phrase "classic compact" basically makes the name of the extension and theme meaningless to non-English speakers. I'd really prefer to see the name of my theme and extension translated along with everything else as the names are descriptive. The idea that the name should convey is that the theme is a classic (e.g. klasyczne) theme that is very compact (e.g. Zwarte)

Why don't you translate the name of an extension? In this case, not translating the phrase "classic compact" basically makes the name of the extension and theme meaningless to non-English speakers. I'd really prefer to see the name of my theme and extension translated along with everything else as the names are descriptive. The idea that the name should convey is that the theme is a classic (e.g. klasyczne) theme that is very compact (e.g. Zwarte)

Why? This is simple. Try ask Google "Klasyczne zwarte" and after "Clasic Compact" Aviary.pl agree - don't translate extensions and themes name. Now are many addons (about 7000) but translated to Polish only about 600. Users looking for addons, searching by English name. E.g my friend tell me about extension for 'słowa kluczowe' (keywords). I'm looking for 'słowa kluczowe' and what? Nothing - this extension isn't translated to Polish, but if I will be looking 'keywords', I will find them.All informations about 'klasyczne, zwarte' are in the summary and long description on addon page.OK, IMHO my translation is OK, but if you think that is wrong, I can cancel mine registration as translator.

It is not that I think your translation is wrong, it is that I don't know if it is right or wrong and I'm just trying to make sure I make the right decision. I do not fully understand what the review process is for translations here.

In regards to the name of add-ons what if the translated name comes first with the English name put in parentheses. For instance I could use "Klasyczne zwarte (Classic Compact)"? This would help people search for add-ons by their English name, but still read it in their native language.

@Ken,Aviary.pl is team which make translation of Firefox, Thunderbird, Flock, SeaMonkey, Sunbird, Lighting, Bugzilla, SUSE and occasionally extensions. We have our system review. I'm this team member. On BabelZilla some national teams make review on national forums.

First of all 'Classic Compact' should be translated to Polish "Klasyczne kompaktowe". Previous I intentionally used your translation. If I use your translation model, 'Classic Compact Options' should be translated "Opcje motywu Klasycznego kompaktowego (Classic Compact)". Take many place and awful in Polish. That's all from my hands.

One remarks about English version. You used in the options window lower case characters for options name, but for AMO upper case. This is intentionally?

@Ken,Aviary.pl is team which make translation of Firefox, Thunderbird, Flock, SeaMonkey, Sunbird, Lighting, Bugzilla, SUSE and occasionally extensions. We have our system review. I'm this team member. On BabelZilla some national teams make review on national forums.

Thank you for this background, it does help settle many of my concerns.

QUOTE (teo @ May 17 2008, 03:34)

First of all 'Classic Compact' should be translated to Polish "Klasyczne kompaktowe". Previous I intentionally used your translation. If I use your translation model, 'Classic Compact Options' should be translated "Opcje motywu Klasycznego kompaktowego (Classic Compact)". Take many place and awful in Polish. That's all from my hands.

I don't fully understand what you are saying here, but I think you meant to say that the Polish translation of the title would be too long and is a little confusing. The name "Classic Compact Options" is a confusing in English as well until one understands that "classic compact" refers to the name of the theme and thus is a proper noun, not a pair of adjectives, then it starts to make more sense.

Without context the name "Classic Compact" makes no sense in English. When put into context in the AMO themes section, however, the name "Classic Compact" becomes a very good description of what the theme is about. In relation to Firefox 3, the word "classic" indicates that the theme has classic/traditional toolbar button styling and the word "compact" indicates a theme that uses very little space.

The problem with translating the title "Classic Compact Options" is that it won't make any sense without a broader context. My wife had problems with this as well. She was okay translating "Classic Compact" as "Классической Компактной" but she couldn't grasp the idea that "Классической Компактной" was a proper noun in the context of the extension and that "Настройки" simply indicated that this was the options panel for "Классической Компактной". She insisted on adding the noun "темы" so that in English the name for the extension would be "Options for the theme Classic Compact". In English, "Options for the theme Classic Compact" does make more sense than "Classic Compact Options" but it is also too long just like "Opcje motywu Klasycznego kompaktowego" is too long.

If we don't try to make grammatical sense of the name and instead use it as a string of descriptive words and assume the user will understand the context of those words (as I am doing in English) then we can shorten the name to "Opcje Klasycznego Kompaktowego". On the "Tools" menu this description would make sense to users and it would make sense to users when used in the context of the theme "Klasycznego Kompaktowego". It would at least make more sense to someone who could not read English than "Opcje Classic Compact", which would have no meaning what so ever. Think of it this way, since I don't speak Polish if I came across an extension titled a theme titled "Klasycznego Kompaktowego" or an extension "Klasycznego Kompaktowego options" it would mean nothing to me. I wouldn't be able to pronounce their names. If, however, "Klasycznego Kompaktowego" was translated into English, it would be grammatically awkward, but I could understand the idea being conveyed if put in context.

From a marketing standpoint when looking at a page full of extensions or themes with English names, a theme or extension with a name that is localized to the language of the user reviewing the page will catch the attention of the user. Even if the name is a little awkward it might just stop the user long enough to take a closer look.

QUOTE (teo @ May 17 2008, 03:34)

One remarks about English version. You used in the options window lower case characters for options name, but for AMO upper case. This is intentionally?

Yes this is intentional to make the description on the AMO page more readable as I had no formatting ability on AMO. It would have been better to use a real bullet list instead of asterisks and to bold the option names, but I could only use plain text so I made a fake bullet list and made each option name if full caps.

@Ken,My translation is as is. If you want use mine version - OK, if not, also OK. Please decide, If yes, I still will be this extension translator, if not - I unregister as translator. Sorry, but I prefere play with XUL instead discus about "Opcje Classic Compact' vs "Ustawienia motywu Classic Compact". In Polish we speaking "Dyskusja na temat wyższości świąt Bożego Narodzenia nad świętami Wielkiej Nocy"

First I have asked for aleksander.adamowski to take over as lead of the Polish translation as he was actually the original Polish translator before I brought my project here. I do appreciate Teo's efforts, but I think things will go smoother if I can work with someone I know better.

Also with the release of Firefox 3.0, I'm getting lots of downloads for Classic Compact and Classic Compact Options, along with requests for new features. Given how long it takes to get extension updates approved, I'd really like to try and roll out new feature additions at the same time I roll out new localizations. Any localization assistance would be appreciated. I have observed that there has been some reference to my theme on Chinese and Arabic blogs/websites so if there are any Chinese or Arabic translators who would be willing to help localize this project to their languages it would be appreciated. I would also appreciate any assistance in dealing with any left to right issues that may be cropping up with my theme for Arabic speakers.

Updated versions of Classic Compact Options and Classic Compact have been uploaded to addons.mozilla.org with the available translations. As new translations are completed I will upload new updates that contain the new localizations.

* OS System Colors: Light/gray backgrounds (default) or dark/black backgrounds. This option is users of really dark operating system colors. It changes the critical black/dark glyphs to white and light hues.

* Webpage Window Border: enabled (default), disabled (MC). This turns off/on a 2 pixel think "sunken" border around the webpage pane. With this option enabled the webpage pane looks the same as other Windows apps and other window panes in Firefox. With it disabled an extra 4 pixels of vertical space is saved.

* Merge Menubar into One Button: No (default), Yes (MC). This option will merge the menubar into a single menu button such that one could then use the "customize toolbar option in Firefox to drag navigation bar buttons to the space made available on the menubar to save more vertical space.

The OS System Color option does not change the background/foreground colors used by Firefox, which are still controlled by the Operating System. That option only changes the glyphs so that they are compatible with dark colors (e.g. black to white). To have dark background colors, you need to change the colors used by your operating system (e.g. desktop properties in Windows).

It looks like the original translation owners were lost in the update. Hopefully this gets fixed shortly. There is an extra file called AMO_descriptions.dtd which contains the strings used for the companion theme "Classic Compact" and for the addons.mozilla.org strings for this extension and theme pair.